"After more than a century of obstruction and delays, still another deadline looms for a settlement that would compensate hundreds of thousands of American Indians for billions of dollars lost by a government that failed miserably to manage tribal lands that had been entrusted to it.

A law passed in 1887 conveyed the land in trust to the federal government. The government-controlled trust accounts were mishandled and lost, cheating the Indian owners out of fees from grazing livestock and gas and oil royalties.

Last month, after 13 years of court wrangling, both sides agreed to a historic settlement that would pay $3.4 billion to the Indians. The settlement would provide partial compensation of $1.4 billion to individual holders of the trusts, plus $2 billion more to fractional claimants.

By any measure, this was a bargain for the federal government and a small fraction of what is actually owed to the tribes, which agreed to the deal after watching the years roll by, and generations expire, without economic justice."